Nightstand (March 2014)

Thanks to getting my final two wisdom teeth out last Thursday, I’ve had opportunity to get caught up on some reading this past weekend. I have not had much time to blog about said reading. So this is all I’ve got for the month!

This month, I read:

• Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography by William Anderson
  A very nice biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, written at a reading level similar to that of the Little House books. See my full review here.
• Laura Ingalls Wilder Country by William Anderson
  A nice little book with photographs of the actual places where Laura lived and some of the actual items described in the Little House books.
• June by Lori Copeland
  Completing a series I began long ago–this one struck me as not very well written at all. Still, I like Christian romances sometimes-especially when I’m recovering from oral surgery :-)
• Discover your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen
  A nice look at the economics of everyday life. This is less sensational and more informative than the well-known Freakanomics, which belongs to the same genre. If you’re interested in economics and human behavior, this is an excellent book on the topic.
• The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
  I read this for the first time with this month’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club–and enjoyed it a good deal. It required serious suspension of disbelief and was certainly an off-the-cuff fantasy as opposed to a well-reasoned one, but it was fun and I liked it. I’ll review it in more depth later.
• The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
  I expected this one to be a Regency, but it turned out to be set a century or so before. Nevertheless, it was a highly enjoyable romp that involved an affair of honor, a highwayman, a kidnapping, a love triangle, and a long-lost heir. It took me a while to get interested in the characters, since I met at least a half dozen before I could figure out which direction the tale was taking–but I’m glad I stuck it out.
• Program Your Baby’s Health by Barbara Luke and Tamara Eberlein
  Not a terrible prenatal program, but not a great one either. It was written to 2004 and the research on healthy pregnancy has advanced quite a bit since that time. The biggest flaw with this particular program was the advice to restrict physical activity during pregnancy–advice that showed up in nearly every chapter. This one was the most readable of the several books I’ve looked at on prenatal programming, but I can’t really recommend it due to its out-of-date recommendations.
• Empires of Mesopotamia by Don Nardo
  A very nice little book detailing the various empires of Mesopotamia from Sumer to the Second Babylonian Empire. I was impressed by how well-written and laid out this was, but a little surprised that it had been filed in the adult non-fiction section of the library. I’d say it’s perfect for a late-elementary or early-Middle School introduction to Mesopotamia.
• Ancient Persia by Don Nardo
  A look at the empire immediately following the Second Babylonian Empire, by the same author as Empires of Mesopotamia. Certain parts echoed the previous book heavily–although this was written at an even lower reading level (early-elementary, I’d say) and filed in the children’s section at my local library
• The 1920s edited by John F. Wukovits
  I grabbed this title to give me a bit more context on Calvin Coolidge (my husband’s favorite president) and found this to be a perfect introduction to the ’20s. The book is a series of chapter-long excerpts from other biographies and histories of the era–which meant it was easy to read in segments, and gave tastes of a number of authors’ styles (making me kinda want to read some of the books from which the excerpts were drawn.)
• Williamsburg: a picture book to remember her by
  A book of photographs of Colonial Williamsburg. I wanted to get a taste of what to expect when we travel to Williamsburg this fall with Daniel’s family–and I’m getting really excited to see all those historic buildings and the craftsmen and craftswomen within!

Still in Progress:

• One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
• To-Do List by Sasha Cagen

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!